Honesty Enabled by Anonymity

Abandonment Cleaning

I had a fight with the sub tonight. At an event, no less. I’m angry and afraid and confused and he’s out in the garage, apparently deciding if he wants to stay in this relationship.

I could go into who was right and who was wrong on each particular point, but it doesn’t matter. It was a clusterfuck of issues that are not new to tonight.

I’m sitting in my room, compulsively cleaning, interspersed with staring off into space. I can’t be oblivious to where the roots of this behavior lie; my father was a clean freak, and whether or not someone was worthy of even basic human level respect was dictated by the cleanliness of their home/room. My mother was/is a hoarder, and he berrated us for years.

I guess it’s not surprising that I am awaiting the pronouncent of the fate of our relationship by frantically cleaning. There is still a huge part of me that believes, deep down, that if I just clean up my mess, I won’t be abandoned.

I shouldn’t even call it compulsive cleaning. It’s Abandonment Cleaning.

We worked through things, though in some ways the sub and I will always have the potential for an ending looming somewhere in the background. I’m married, and while we all work great in our poly/monogamish situation, there are things that he wants (a wife, children) that I can’t provide. If I felt that he was going to miss those opportunities because of our situation, I would end it for his own good because I love him. Luckily, there are a lot of incredible women out there, and I have faith that eventually we will find the one who is the right fit for both him and our circumstances.

In the meanwhile, we addressed some communication issues we had been having, and ended up using the argument to fuel a very productive, healthy discussion. To me, that’s a win.